Managing for Creativity in Japan » client relationship http://a-small-lab.com/managing-for-creativity-in-japan Talking with Foreign Executives in Japan Wed, 30 Nov 2011 07:02:14 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3 On Building Trust and Relationships http://a-small-lab.com/managing-for-creativity-in-japan/on-building-trust-and-relationships/ http://a-small-lab.com/managing-for-creativity-in-japan/on-building-trust-and-relationships/#comments Fri, 05 Feb 2010 23:00:33 +0000 Chris Berthelsen http://a-small-lab.com/managing-for-creativity-in-japan/?p=368 “(CB: So building trust and relationships is very important. How do you approach that?)

You need to have either done some business with them before or they need to have met you before…There needs to some kind of introduction….That’s the way to do it, you can’t just cold call. We haven’t tried that but I don’t think you can. There really does need to be some kind of introduction. Past that there are a number of meetings….meetings where you don’t really talk about things, you just turn up and then you hope. They do test you out, you know. And then, if the person that you have been dealing with gets replaced then you have to start the process again. That happened recently in fact. It’s a bit like ‘wow..back at square one..how did that happen?!’

In this regard there is a massive difference between here and London or New York. People are more willing to take you on face value overseas. They are also very business oriented. If people think that you can bring business to their company it’s like ‘OK where do we start?’ But here, it doesn’t matter if you can say that you are going to bring them the biggest idea they’ve ever had (which would be bullshit of course)…there would still be the need to find out about you and think about where the relationship is going to go. It’s all very much for the long term. To compare, in London you might just get together for one project….it is much faster moving.”

]]> http://a-small-lab.com/managing-for-creativity-in-japan/on-building-trust-and-relationships/feed/ 0 Risk Averse Clients http://a-small-lab.com/managing-for-creativity-in-japan/risk-averse-clients/ http://a-small-lab.com/managing-for-creativity-in-japan/risk-averse-clients/#comments Thu, 26 Nov 2009 23:00:14 +0000 Chris Berthelsen http://a-small-lab.com/managing-for-creativity-in-japan/?p=116 “Clients in Japan don’t generally ask for advice from their suppliers, they generally tell their suppliers what to do and tend to be very prescriptive. They tend to go into great detail about how they want something to be done. The client generally wants to have a very detailed input into everything. I think my strength is in coming up with creative solutions for a client’s marketing problems and working out a way to measure them – developing a framework for looking at the problem. But if you have a client that is very prescriptive then, to be brutally frank about it, they tend to ruin the process for themselves. Of course not all clients are like that but in general they tend to be so controlling that it destroys any creative aspect. Creativity involves taking a risk, right? If I do something in a new way, or use a new technique, then there is a risk that it may not work. But clients in this country do not want to take risks, and they have a need for control and detailed input. That can tend to kill the creativity. This is something that I have found frustrating at times.”

“The bottom line on everything with client-service businesses is that the client sets the standard. It’s the level of openness of the client towards new ideas that will determine how many new ideas are put forward. Clients will complain about there being no new ideas but when they are presented with a genuinely new idea they can’t cope with it. There sometimes tends to be a bit of bitching and moaning about the fact that their ad agency is not creative enough or that their research company doesn’t come up with interesting solutions but in 9 cases out of 10 it’s not that there is a lack of will on the agency side. The issue is that the companies themselves are not demanding it. If a company says something like “I want something highly creative” then the agency will go out and find someone who can do it, or if they can’t another agency will. You can’t provide a service in a vacuum. The buyer is the party that actually sets the scene for everything. So if there is not a demand for creative response then there will not be such a response. I think that the whole structure of the way decisions are made mitigates against creativity.”



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This post is part of a series of excerpts from interviews with foreign executives in Japan, focusing on creativity. Excerpts have been edited for confidentiality.
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